The owner of a Huntington Beach pharmacy made his first appearance in court Monday on charges of bilking the state out of at least $5.3 million in an alleged Medi-Cal fraud scheme involving HIV/AIDS medication.
Hanny Maher Tadros of La Verne was charged Feb. 14 with a count of conspiracy to commit insurance fraud, three counts of fraudulent insurance benefit claim, three counts of grand theft and two counts of failing to file any return or supply any information with the intent to evade taxes, all felonies.
Tadros was arrested Friday and made his first appearance in court on Monday in the Central Justice Center in Santa Ana, according to court records. Tadros’ arraignment was rescheduled for Wednesday in the West Justice Center in Westminster.
Co-defendants Ben Nguyen Ho and Ted Bradley Eliopulos have not yet been arrested.
Special Agent Ronnie Diancin of the California Department of Justice’s Medi-Cal Fraud and Elder Abuse Department outlined the alleged fraud scheme in court papers.
The investigation was triggered by a referral from the Department of Health Care Services that conducted an audit in December 2018 of the Best Marina Pharmacy, 16881 Algonquin St.
The pharmacy billed Medi-Cal “for far more drugs dispensed than Best Marina purchased,” Diancin said.
Ho owns Pacific Lyons Care Inc., an AIDS Service Organization. He operates it with Eliopulos, Diancin said.
Tadros acquired Pacific Lyons and its patient list — which is worth $5 million to $9 million — for $500,000, and it was characterized as an “illegal referral kickback arrangement,” Diancin said.
Investigators found that 116 prescriptions that were submitted for reimbursements came from a doctor who said he did not approve them, according to court records.
Medi-Cal paid Best Marina $100,743 in claims for those prescriptions authorized by forged signatures, Diancin said.
“In order to execute the scheme, Best Marina worked with employees of Pacific Lyons to recycle drugs back into stock without reversing the associated claims, creating and dispensing false prescriptions and/or billing for invalid prescriptions,” Diancin alleged. “They would accomplish this by providing kickbacks to beneficiaries and delivery drivers.”
The company also “falsely classified business expenses to lower taxable income, failed to report significant amounts of income and ran unknown sources of income through the books and records of the pharmacy,” according to Diancin.
Some of the alleged kickbacks included a yacht, rolex watches and gold bars that were listed as expenses, Diancin alleged.
“Tadros, Ho and Eliopulos designed a scheme used to defraud the Medi-Cal, Medicare and (the AIDS Drug Assistance Program) programs of $5.3 million for drugs never provided to patients and they did so using Best Marina and various entities, including Pacific Lyons and others to generate fake prescriptions and to receive the proceeds from the scheme,” Diancin said.